


Those Eyes of Hers

by RowWithAChipNPin



Category: Marvel 616, The Avengers (2012), X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men Evolution
Genre: Alien Invasion, Blood, Clones, Crossover, Developing Relationship, Hydra, I Don't Even Know, Implied Underage, Mercenaries, Mild Language, Multi, Mutants, Prostitution, Snapshots, Theft, Violence, War, teenage killer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-11
Updated: 2013-07-11
Packaged: 2017-12-19 04:22:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/879411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RowWithAChipNPin/pseuds/RowWithAChipNPin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time he met her, she hospitalized him for over a month and killed hundreds in the process. It was destined to be the first of many, though he didn't know it. The second time they met, it was years later and he didn't realize it until much later. The third time, she saved his ass from being gutted by an alien. At that point, he figured they should just trade numbers and get it over with. Their lives are intertwined and there's nothing he can do about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Iraq

**Author's Note:**

> I own neither X-23 or the Avengers, blah blah blah. If you haven't read the NYX series, you might not know who Zebra Daddy is--he's X-23's pimp during her stint as a prostitute.

The first time Clint Barton met her, she hospitalized him for over a month and killed hundreds in the process.

He and Natasha had taken a vacation together in the Mediterranean after a particularly… stressful op involving a car chase, lasers, and a giant exploding teddy bear. It had come to a premature end when they started a bar fight out of boredom and got kicked out. How were they supposed to know that the guy with the funky red shades was a mutant?

Natasha took job in her motherland for the _Organizatsiya_ ; he'd been contracted to retrieve a very dangerous piece of technology from a terrorist cell in the Middle East. The same day as he infiltrated the headquarters to retrieve it, a tourist group was taken hostage, including an American family of three.

It was going so well. He entered through a weak spot in the perimeter, easily dispatching the guards and slipping past their embarrassingly inadequate security. It took him all of ten minutes to get to the safe room. That was where everything went wrong.

He barely made a sound as he dashed down the hallways of the compound, his footsteps whispering over the concrete. His black uniform kept him shielded in the shadows, but stealth was not made by dark clothing alone; a truly stealthy person could go by unnoticed in bright red if needed, the dark colors just made things easier. It was only a matter of time before the insurgents found their fallen comrades, most of them with arrows protruding from various body parts; he wanted to get the tech and get out before that happened, because he had to account for every body and every shot fired when this was over.

Hawkeye heard a fight around the corner, he readied an arrow, and when he turned the corner and took aim…he froze. He hesitated, because his mind processed what he was seeing seconds too slow: a small figure in white and red, flashes of silver, and two green eyes boring into his. He didn't fire, and it cost him.

Because that was the point where he got his ass handed to him by a little girl in a skirt.

He was in a coma for two weeks, and out of commission with a busted leg, concussion, cracked ribs, and two slashes across his back for three more. He was told later that the girl was known as X-23, a mutant mercenary for hire. She'd been part of the tourist group, brought behind enemy lines by the terrorists themselves as a hostage. She'd been hired by another party to steal the very same tech that he'd been after, only she got to it first and left a trail of mutilated bodies in her wake. He was lucky she left him in one piece, let alone alive.

Because she got to the tech first and incapacitated him—because Hawkeye couldn't shoot a little girl, even if she was covered in blood, surrounded by dead bodies—that tech fell into the hands of the Al-Qaeda and allowed them to make a strike against American forces in Iraq. 200 good, honorable men and women were meaninglessly slaughtered because he failed to react. Clint would never forgive himself for that. So many people widowed, so many children orphaned because he couldn't shoot.

During his time off, he poured himself into learning everything he could about her. He watched videos, read reports, learned the statistics, until he felt his head would explode. She was a threat, a sociopath with the mutant abilities to indulge her favorite hobby—killing. She'd started with Presidential candidate Greg Johnson and went from there, sometimes dropping off the radar for weeks, months, before another body would show up somewhere in the world: Saudi Arabia, Las Vegas, Japan, Columbia, the Congo, and many other places. Tycoons, drug lords, pimps, assassins, leaders, Mafia, soldiers, political figures—she killed anyone and everyone for the right price; SHIELD kept track of every body, compiling evidence against her.

The only thing they didn't know was what she looked like; the only pictures they had were blurs, enough to know that she was a young girl with dark hair, but that was hardly a description. Hawkeye had been too busy getting his ass kicked to take a picture, but he figured he would recognize her. He knew she had dark hair and pale skin, and he would never forget those eyes of hers, the last image burned into his retinas before he blacked out. The first description that came to mind was emerald green, but no, that wasn't quite right. They were bright, and full of an intelligence that was part smarts and part clever; and they were definitely the greenest eyes he'd ever seen bar the Hulk's.

He studied until he decided that he would be able to take her down for good next time he encountered her.

How wrong he was.


	2. Diner

The second time he met her, years later, it was under slightly better circumstances and he didn't realize it until later.

It was a month before the being-taken-over-by-the-Tesseract-and-a-psychotic-god incident, long enough that the strange encounter in the Middle East had slipped his mind. He'd lost the man he was tracking; somehow, the rat bastard had managed to slip off his radar and stay hidden. It had been important enough that he'd sought the help of one of Nat's old contacts, a man by the name of Zebra Daddy.

Through Natasha, Clint arranged a meeting with the man at a neutral location under the alias Ronin, a hole-in-the-wall place run by an old guy with more hair in his ears than on his head and who lived on Social Security checks. The bell tinkled as he pushed open the door and stepped in, alerting his arrival; Barton growled. Bells made noise and noise was not conducive to his line of work. The small, dilapidated diner smelled heavily of grease, smoke, and mold, not a pleasant combination. There was an old, cracked jukebox sputtering out warped songs from the 60s in the corner, and the remaining wallpaper was faded to the point of being homogenous.

The place was near empty, so it wasn't difficult to find his contact. If it wasn't the sweaty old man behind the grill or the bored college girl doing her trigonometry homework instead of manning the cash register, then it had to be the man sitting at the corner booth snorting what was probably coke with his arm around a teenage girl.

He was a weasely guy, with a pointy nose, beady eyes, slicked hair, and the kind of shifty look that Hawkeye associated with criminals and guys who slipped parole. One look at him and Clint knew all he needed to. But the girl next to him was a whole different story—alabaster skin, long black hair, and Goth make-up and clothing, and eyes that would have been pretty if they weren't clouded and unfocused. He suspected drugs or abuse.

The man looked up as Clint neared, his eyes narrowing as they took each other in. _Bloodshot eyes, runny nose, thin as a stick, dilated pupils, a bead of sweat on his forehead—definitely cocaine._ He cleared his throat. "Zebra Daddy, I presume?" The man's lips spread in a smile that a five-year-old could see through and nodded. "Yea, man, call me Daddy—ev'rybody does. Yo mus' be Ronin. The Widow told me 'bou yo." He motioned to the girl. "Dis is my girl, Boo." She didn't acknowledge the introduction. "Yo want sometin' ta eat?"

"Daddy" spoke with an accent that Clint knew was fake, and it grated on his nerves. However, he bit his tongue, figuratively, and slid into the seat across from the man. "No."

Daddy pursed his lips and Clint knew that he'd violated some sort of unknown code of conduct. He didn't want to screw up this deal, so he conceded. "Alright, actually, I wouldn't mind a coffee." How badly could they screw up a cup of coffee anyway? When Daddy's thin, rat-like face lit up like the Fourth of July, Clint knew he'd said the right thing. Negotiating with this guy was going to be like walking through a minefield.

As it turned out, the coffee tasted like burnt sludge and Daddy smelled like weed and sex. The girl he called Boo slowly ate her sundae, and even as he negotiated for his information, Clint found himself intrigued with her. There was something about her, some familiar quality that made him think that he'd seen her somewhere before. It was those eyes. He knew them, but he couldn't remember where from.

He didn't connect the dots between this sad girl accompanying her pimp and X-23 until much later, long after he'd left the diner with the information and a distinct need to take an hour-long shower, down 2K. Two weeks later, Zebra Daddy was found dead in an alley with several other bodies, presumably his goons; they had to use dental records to identify him. The coroner's official report described him as looking "like chicken con carne." Clint didn't shed any tears over that pig's death, but he beat himself up for weeks for letting her slip right through his fingers. He'd been sitting at the same table as her and he hadn't even known. Fury and Natasha both told him not to blame himself; she'd outsmarted everyone from militias and armed goons to the Fantastic Four and the X-Men. It wasn't his fault he didn't recognize her; it had been years since Iraq and she'd grown up. Still, he couldn't let it go.

How could he have possibly known that his fate would be unavoidably entwined with the strange, silent girl who had such sadness in her eyes and whipped cream on her nose?


	3. Manhattan

The third time he encountered X-23 was a month later, and less of an encounter and more of her saving his ass from being alien prey.

It was during the battle in NYC against the Chitauri. Hawkeye was up on his rooftop perch, loosing arrows at the flying monstrosities invading Manhattan. He almost didn't believe what was going on around him; if he hadn't been turned into a meat puppet by the psycho god, he _wouldn't_ have believed it. The massive...whatever in the sky—he wanted to call it a 'hole' or a 'wormhole' but he was sure there was a more scientific-sounding term for it, and Banner wasn't there to explain it. Chitauri pouring out of it like some sci-fi geek's wet dream, armor glittering in the light of stars galaxies away, flying on contraptions he would have never dreamed possible.

Somewhere inside him, a little boy fascinated with space was squealing in perverse joy at the idealistic dream of non-terrestrial life.

The more realistic adult was ready to smack the little boy upside his head, because this was neither funny nor what they had in mind.

One of his trick arrows buried itself in a Chitauri's beetle-like armor; he counted down silently. _Three, two, on—_ BOOM! It detonated, blowing a hole in the alien and separating it from its ride; it tumbled off and to the ground below. He smirked and fired another one, and another.

The air was heavy with the smells of war: burning flesh, the smoke of a thousand tiny fires. The stench of death permeated everything, clinging to his clothes, invading his nostrils. He'd been in war before, but it didn't make it any easier. People were screaming and panicking, running left and right like chickens with their heads cut off. The facades of nearby buildings were sheared off and ragged, cars were crushed, shattered glass and twisted metal littered the street; was that his car?! Anger welled inside him. These bastards were going to pay; oh, they were going to pay!

He reached over his shoulder for another arrow and his heart stalled when his fingers found only air. He glanced back to make sure; yep, empty. He swore, loudly and creatively. He was out of arrows.

Then he looked down at the group—pack? herd? gaggle?—of aliens clambering up the side of the building to his roost.

He swore again.

Hawkeye adjusted his hold on his bow, ready to start whacking. He could hear his teammates bickering in his ear, and he rolled his eyes. Children. Funny, considering he was the youngest of the Avengers. Funny, considering a lot of things.

Monsters, magic—this was not what he was trained for. SHIELD training included tactics, martial arts, hand-to-hand combat, weaponry such as firearms and melee weapons, and other military skills. He knew infiltration and exfiltration, basic demolitions, combat, etc. He had an eidetic memory and the highest marksman scores in the world short of Neena "Domino" Thurman, and she didn't count.

None of that prepared him for fighting alien invaders led by a homicidal, fanatical superhuman straight out of mythology.

He didn't know how many he took out before they started to overwhelm him; he supposed it didn't matter, because they just kept coming. They poured out of the wormhole like rabbits. One went down, there were five to takes its place. He didn't know how many he'd nailed or how long he could keep this up, but he knew it wouldn't be much longer.

And he was so busy trying to cover his front that he missed the Chitauri creeping up. He didn't notice until he picked up the crunch behind him, and by then, he only had time to raise his bow to try and block the claw coming down on him. In that moment, he was afraid. Afraid that this was the end of the line for him, afraid that he would never get back at Loki for subjugating his will.

He was afraid of dying.

He closed his eyes and braced himself for the impact. It never came.

Instead, there was a _SNIKT,_ a shrill, ear-piercing scream that was most definitely not human and unlike anything on this Earth, and a sickening squishing sound; almost immediately after, his face was splattered with a warm, gooey substance. He knew before he opened his eyes that it was her; it was X-23. It wasn't her scent, it wasn't her voice; it was a knot in his stomach and two lines of burning across his back. He opened his eyes and stared at the figure standing above him, trademark claws thrust through the eyesocket and buried in the skull of the Chitauri. With a grunt, she pulled her claws free, slick with thick, viscous black blood. The alien teetered for a moment before she lifted her booted foot and gave it a solid kick, and it tumbled backwards over the edge.

She turned and looked down at him, and he knew for absolute certainty; she looked different from the last time he saw her, but it was her. It was X-23. Same long black hair that was almost blue, this time anchored in a ponytail; porcelain skin kept perfect by her healing factor; and the green eyes that had haunted him for years. Sometime in the past month she'd shed her Goth clothes; now, with her denim jacket and jeans, purple shirt, and cowboy boots, she looked like a punk cowgirl. She was far more than what she appeared, though; she was a beautiful, deadly panther disguised as a pretty, docile housecat.

He recovered his senses and scrambled to his feet, raising his bow like a tire iron he could use against her. His common sense told him that it was stupid and suicidal to attack her, because she possessed no mercy and would kill him without a second thought; a bow without any arrows was about as effective as a plastic spoon. She snorted, and for the first time, he heard her speak.

"Are you serious?"

He blinked and realized how silly he must look to her. Two master assassins—one with a much better moral code that the other. Both armed—one with a bow and no arrows, the other with six very sharp, unbreakable blades she can't lose. They both knew who would win in a fight.

She'd already done it once. He didn't know if his pride would survive a second beating.

He sighed and lowered his arm. Maybe he would stand a fighting chance if he had more than his bare hands and a Glock handgun. Maybe, and that was a mighty big maybe. She was younger, faster, and damn near indestructible.

"X-23."

It wasn't a question; it was a statement. It was also apparently the wrong thing to say. Her eyes darkened and turned to slits, and she snapped angrily, "Don't call me that!"

Stark was yelling into his ear, but Hawkeye was only half listening. He was trying not to move, because he'd seen the damage those blades could do, and one of them was currently pressed against his neck. He watched as emotions played out over her face—first anger, then uncertainty, and finally a cold acceptance—and she retracted her claws. He waited until she stepped out his personal space before saying, "Keep your cool, kid. That was the only name in the file. What do you _want_ me to call you?"

She let out a deep breath and her eyes lightened. "My name is Laura."

He nodded, thinking of a way to tell Iron Man that no, he couldn't move his ass, he was facing down a teenage mercenary with a bad attitude. "Alright, _Laura,_ why did you save my life?"

She tilted her head, and it was rather cute how she looked so confused. Did she really not remember him from Iraq? Or the diner, only a month before? He expanded on it. "You tried to kill me once, and then you ignored me, and _then_ you save my life? What the hell?!"

Understanding cleared her pretty features. He figured her as sixteen, seventeen—eighteen at the most. What had happened to her that turned her into a sociopathic killer?

"I thought that was you," she said, "when I saw you in the diner. It was nothing personal in Iraq; it wasn't my choice to be there." She didn't elaborate. He didn't want a knife in his gut so he didn't press. "You work for SHIELD."

He nodded, all the confirmation she needed. She reached into a pocket in her jacket and pulled out a folded envelope; she held it out to him, and after a moment of hesitation, he took it and tucked it into his back pocket.

"Give it to Fury. Tell him I said hi."

With that, a smile, and a flash of her eyes, she pivoted and took off, leaping over the edge of the building and disappearing into the fray.

He groaned, realizing that his life just got a hell of a lot more complicated.


	4. Talon

That was the last time he saw X-23, and the first time he met Laura. It was destined not to be the last.

Because three months later, after an incident involving the Hulk and Amanda Von Doom that got out of control, Fury called a meeting. He summoned the Avengers like a subpoena from Lord Voldemort and stood at the head of the table, his one eye roving over the team. Tony was whistling a show tune that Clint vaguely recognized, Steve was still dressed for the gym, Banner probably hadn't come out of his lab since the last mission, Thor was present as a hologram since he was still on Asgard, Clint had come from the shooting range and still had his bow and quiver, and Natasha had been sparring with some new recruits (aka kicking the crap out of them and having a grand old time).

Clint and Natasha were used to Fury's antics and eccentricities; they just sat there and waited, silently laying bets on how long it would be this time. The others weren't so wise. After several prolonged seconds of scrutiny, Steve broke the silence by asking, "Excuse me, sir, but is there an actual reason we're here?" _Or are we just here so you can stare creepily at us?_ The words went unsaid.

Clint smirked at Natasha across the conference table and mouthed, _I win._ She stuck out her tongue. Bruce rolled his eyes at the immaturity of his teammates.

Fury scowled and hit a button on a remote. Transparent screens flickered to life behind him with videos, and Clint got a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. This was not going to go well.

The videos were of footage of the Chitauri fight and ones that were more recent, such as a very public battle with HYDRA drones invading Washington DC. The different videos were of all different angles and qualities, ranging from professional news footage to clips taken from cell phone cameras. But the meaning behind each thumbnail, each piece of the moving mosaic, was loud and clear. There they were, each one proof of what they could do on their own and as a team.

He wondered briefly if one of those videos had X-23—no, he remembered, _Laura_ —in them. Then he decided that, even if she was in some of them, he would never know, because she was there one instant and gone the next, tearing through Chitauri like they were pigs set up for her to slaughter. Maybe that flash of silver was her striking, or that spark of light was the sun glinting off her claws. That speck of color in the corner—her jacket and shirt, perhaps. It was impossible to know with everything else going on in the videos. None of the footage truly conveyed what it had been like. It was as if he was watching a movie, and hadn't actually been there while it happened. That man and woman, ducking and moving around each other gracefully and with ease like two cogs in a well-oiled machine; was that really him and Natasha? Was that what they really looked like?

Damn, he thought, I look good.

Fury tapped the table to draw attention back to himself. "The Avengers did good work in Manhattan—excellent, in fact—and have continued to do such work since." While the man didn't show it, Clint knew that Fury was extremely proud of the Avengers Initiative to the point of conceit. He'd watched a plan unfold to perfection, brought together a ragtag group of exceptional people and made them a team, and successfully managed to piss off the Board of Directors to no end.

"In the process," he continued, "two assassins helped save the world,—" he looked at Clint, who grinned cheekily, and Natasha, who mock-saluted—"a monster became a hero,—" he gave Bruce a pointed look, which the good doctor returned tenfold—"and a self-obsessed maniac almost sacrificed his life to save others." Tony chimed, "And looked badass doing it!", which Fury meaningfully ignored.

"What's your point?" Steve asked, serious as always. Clint vaguely wondered if he was that uptight in bed with Tony, but then doubted it.

Fury gave him an irritated look. "My _point,_ " he growled, "is that in light of these…transformations, the board has decided to add a new member to the Avengers roster, effective immediately. She has been a pain in my ass for years and has constantly thrown a wrench in SHIELD operations whenever possible. They are under the impression that this team will be able to—" he searched for the right word—"reform her into a model citizen."

There was silence, and Tony finally said, "What's the catch? Cause there has to be a catch."

Fury nodded, and Clint was under the impression that some unsaid requirement had just been filled.

"There is. She is a former agent of HYDRA—" Steve visibly stiffened, expression turning stony in a second—"operating as an assassin who's services were sold to the highest bidder, up until last year when she went rogue. The arrangement is she works for SHIELD and as an Avenger, and I don't send her to prison for the rest of her unnatural life." He did not elaborate.

He scanned the Avengers present, making sure they were listening very carefully. "She has a larger body count that Hawkeye and Black Widow put together, is as durable and almost as strong as the Captain and just as destructive as the Hulk. She's also damn near impossible to kill." He smirked. "Believe me, I've tried. Multiple times. Just keeps coming back like a mutant cockroach." He looked directly at Clint. "Hawkeye has already encountered her, which means she'll either attack on sight or cooperate. Personally, I'm hoping for the latter. It'll mean that much less paperwork for me to fill out later."

The doors slid open, and with an introduction like that, they all swiveled to gawk at the new recruit. Clint already knew who the new member was before she walked through the door, and he knew their lives were about to get a lot more complicated.

_Here we go._

Laura met his eyes and flashed a predatory grin. In that moment, Clint knew that destiny was a bitch. And he was looking right at her.

"Avengers, meet Agent Laura Kinney, codename Talon. Laura: play nice and don't try and kill anyone. Save it for the Tower. We just finished rebuilding."


End file.
